I have been trying to install OpenSuse 12.3 from the DVD that came with LXF171 onto a portable hard disc (HD).

The portable disc already contains Ubuntu 13.04 running successfully.

I created a partition of 50Gb for it and assumed that openSuse would use the swap partition that was already on the portable HD

When the installer got to the point where it wanted to know where to install OpenSuse, I selected /dev/sdb8 with /dev/sdb5 as the swap partition which are both on the portable HD.

No matter what I did, the installer insisted that it would put OpenSuse where I wanted it but wanted to use the swap partition (/dev/sda? ) on the computer that I was using for the installation onto the portable HD and was going to delete the swap partition on the portable.

The computer that I was using belongs to someone else who has his Linux distribution and Windows on it so I did not want the OpenSuse installer messing about with his hard disc.

How can I get the installer to use the portable drive exclusively without interfering with the other computer?

Before anyone asks: I want it on a portable HD because have two desktops in different locations but no laptop so the portable drive enables me to use the same installation of Ubuntu on both machines

The first 2 lines are in red and I don't want either partition deleting but OpenSuse seems determined to do what it wants, so I think I had better abandon my attempts in case I end up deleting the contents of /sda.